I've decided to finally buy myself an Electronic Dictionary but am a bit lost because there are just too many out there!

I am in my second year studying of Japanese, Student of Japanese Studies at University and going to Japan for one year this summer. I also take classical Japanese classes. I've passed JLPT 3 with an A and am aiming for JLPT 2 now, also JLPT 1 after my exchange year. I was considering to buy the Casio EX-word XD-GF10000 or the Casio EX-word XD-GF9800, but as I need a classical dictionary, the XD-GF10000 would probably be the one for me. But then there is still the very high price!

My teacher told me to buy a model from Sharp (Papyrus PW-AT770-S), as the Sharp models are much cheaper than the ones from Casio. I haven’t found any reviews on it though or any comparison between Sharp and Casio.Is Casio really so much better?? Or is it just the price that is higher?There are also the Wordtanks from Canon, which are also cheaper that the Casio ones.

It’s my first 電子辞書 so I am a bit lost actually. Of course I don’t want to spend too much money if possible, but I’d still rather buy a bit more expensive one which will last for longer instead and is also useful for more advanced studies.

What are your experiences and which brand do u use?I would be very glad to hear your opinion!

I have never used Sharp Papyrus. But in my experience, Casio Ex-Word and Canon Wordtanks are the best in the market. They have the usual J-E, E-J dictionaries installed. Some have backlight functionality, some have audio, some have stroke order functionality.

One of the previous models I used, the Canon Wordtank V80 even has a handwriting input search function and a Test function. Very helpful with Kanji!

I have a Canon Wordtank G55. I chose it because it has English support, but all the support it has for English is having the menus in English. I think that you don't need it.

It has the Super Daijirin, Kenkyusha's Jap-Eng Chuujiten (or chuuwaeijiten), Reader's Eng-Jap dictionary II, plus a kanji dictionary. It wasn't very useful to me for two reasons:1. Kenkyusha's Chuujiten is NOTHING like the Daijiten. Lots of missing words that shouldn't be missing.2. I'm not good in kanji and vocab, so if I use, for example, the Daijirin it would take SO MUCH TIME.3. The Eng-Jap dictionary is useless, because it's geared towards native Japanese who are studying English.4. Since the wordtank doesn't have handwriting recognition, it takes forever to get a kanji reading. There's no choose-by-radical option too, although you are allowed to write down the components of the kanji (e.g., tsuki + hi will give you the kanji for akarui).

Given that you're targeting N2, however, I think that what you would find the most useful are the Super Daijirin (J-J) and the Kenkyusha (J-E). For J-E, I think Kenkyusha's the best out there, just make sure that you get the DAIjiten version though.

There might also be some dictionaries available through Appstore/Google Play, possibly from the same companies. That might be a better option. Also, Aedict (Android) is FREE and has excellent handwriting recognition, so you can use this to supplement any electronic dictionary of your choice.